"Travelling light, I should say," and Westcott, after one more glance, crept down the sand-heap and joined the waiting man below. Both stood intent and ready, revolvers drawn, listening. The heavy wheels grated in the sand, the driver whistling to while away the dreary pull and the horses breathing heavily. Moore pulled them up with a jerk, as two figures leaped into view, his whistle coming to an abrupt pause.
"Hell's fire!" was all he said, staring dumbly down into Brennan's face over the front wheel. "Where in Sam Hill did you come from?"
"I'm the one to ask questions, son," returned the little marshal, the vicious blue barrel shining in the sunlight, "and the smarter you answer, the less reason I shall have to hurt yer. Don't reach for that gun! Are you travelling alone?"
Moore nodded, his hands up, but still grasping the reins.
"Then climb down over the wheel. Jim, take a look under that canvas; Moore, here, is generally a genial sort o' liar, and we'd better be sure. All right—hey? Then dismount, Matt, and be quick about it. Now unbuckle that belt, and hand the whole outfit over to Westcott; then we'll talk business together."
He shoved his own weapon back into its holster, and faced the prisoner, who had recovered from his first shock of surprise, and whose pugnacious temper was beginning to assert itself. Brennan read this in the man's sulky, defiant glance, and his lips smiled grimly.
"Getting bullish, are you, Matt?" he said, rather softly. "Goin' ter keep a close tongue in your head; so that's the game? Well, I wouldn't, son, if I was you. Now, see here, Moore," and the voice perceptibly hardened, and the marshal's eyes were like flints. "You know me, I reckon, an' that I ain't much on boys' play. You never heard tell o' my hittin' anybody just fer fun, did yer?"
There was no answer.
"An' yer never heard no one say," went on Brennan, "that I was afraid ter hit when I needed to. I reckon also yer know what sorter man Jim Westcott is. Now the two ov us ain't out here in this damned Shoshone desert fer the fun of it—not by a jugful. Get that fact into yer head, son, an' maybe it'll bring yer some sense. Do yer get me?"
"Yes," sullenly and reluctantly. "But yer haven't got nuthin' on me."